Bengals vs Steelers Prediction: Joe Burrow's Sore Back Against T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith
- Our pick is the Cincinnati Bengals to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 23–16 at Acrisure Stadium on Sunday 27 September 2026. It is the site’s judgement from box scores, injury news and the head-to-head record, not odds or a model.
- Joe Burrow was listed questionable with a back injury for Week 2, played, was sacked five times and hit five more in Houston, and said afterwards the back was ‘a little sore’.
- T.J. Watt (3.5) and Alex Highsmith (3) have 6.5 of Pittsburgh’s seven sacks, and Watt also scored on a 35-yard interception return in Week 1.
- Pittsburgh’s offense has one touchdown in eight quarters and is 5-for-25 on third down, while Cincinnati’s defense has eight sacks and held Houston to six points.
- This page was written on Tuesday 22 September 2026, before the first official Week 3 injury reports on Wednesday 23 September; any ‘Out’ or ‘Questionable’ label quoted here is ESPN’s, not a team designation.
- Cincinnati is 2–0 and alone in first in the AFC North. Pittsburgh leads the all-time series 72–41, and Burrow is 3–1 as a starter in Pittsburgh.
Our pick is the Cincinnati Bengals, 23–16, at Acrisure Stadium on Sunday 27 September. Pittsburgh’s offense has one touchdown in eight quarters, so the Steelers’ way to win runs through T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith getting to a Joe Burrow who played last week on a sore back and was sacked five times. We expect Cincinnati’s line to give up sacks, not the game.
When is Bengals vs Steelers and what channel is it on?
Bengals vs Steelers kicks off at 1:00 PM ET (10:00 AM PT) on Sunday 27 September 2026 at Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, and it is on CBS. Ian Eagle has play-by-play, Ross Tucker is the analyst and Evan Washburn is on the sideline.
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Kickoff | Sunday 27 September 2026, 1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT |
| Venue | Acrisure Stadium, Pittsburgh: open air, natural grass |
| TV | CBS |
| Stream | Paramount+, where your local CBS station carries the game |
| Phone | NFL+, in-market only |
| Elsewhere | NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market viewers |
How have the Bengals and Steelers played so far?
Cincinnati is 2–0 after beating Tampa Bay 33–27 at home and Houston 20–6 on the road. Pittsburgh is 1–1 after beating Atlanta 20–13 at home and losing 20–3 at New England. All four games were on Sundays.
| Date | Game | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Sun 13 Sep | Buccaneers at Bengals | CIN won 33–27 |
| Sun 20 Sep | Bengals at Texans | CIN won 20–6 |
| Sun 13 Sep | Falcons at Steelers | PIT won 20–13 |
| Sun 20 Sep | Steelers at Patriots | PIT lost 20–3 |
Cincinnati. Burrow is 45 of 66 for 461 yards, three touchdowns and one interception, which Tampa Bay’s Josiah Trotter returned 38 yards for a score. Tee Higgins has 8 catches for 154 yards; Ja’Marr Chase caught both touchdowns in Houston. The defense has 8 sacks, four in each game, and the team is +3 in turnovers after Tampa Bay lost four fumbles. Houston, without receiver Nico Collins, went 0-for-4 in the red zone and 0-for-4 on fourth down. Evan McPherson is 6 for 6 on field goals, with makes of 58, 57, 55 and 51 yards.
Pittsburgh. Twenty-three points in two games. The only offensive touchdown is Pat Freiermuth’s 6-yard catch in Week 1; the other was Watt’s 35-yard interception return. Aaron Rodgers, 42, is 47 of 79 for 408 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He has been sacked six times and fumbled twice at New England, where Elijah Ponder returned one 19 yards for a touchdown. The Steelers are 5-for-25 on third down.
The table matters too. Cincinnati is alone in first in the AFC North; Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cleveland are all 1–1. This is Mike McCarthy’s first division game since replacing Mike Tomlin, who stepped down on 13 January 2026 after 19 seasons, and the Steelers play again four days later, at Cleveland on Thursday 1 October.
Is Joe Burrow healthy enough to face T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith?
He played through a back injury last week and calls it sore rather than a problem, but the Bengals have not said whether he will practice fully, and the first official Week 3 report is not due until Wednesday 23 September. That matters because Watt and Highsmith have 6.5 of Pittsburgh’s seven sacks.
The Week 2 record, from the Bengals’ official injury report of 18 September: back, limited Wednesday and Thursday, full on Friday, listed questionable. He started in Houston and was sacked five times for 25 yards, and the team’s postgame notes counted five more hits. Afterwards Burrow said the back was “a little sore after the game, but no problems” (bengals.com, 20 September). On Monday 21 September, asked about his practice status this week, Zac Taylor declined to say, telling reporters he thought he knew the answer but did not want to give it yet.
That is not a player described as injured. It is not one described as fully healthy either, and we do not describe him that way.
On the other side of the line, Watt has 3.5 sacks (two against Atlanta, 1.5 at New England) plus his pick-six. Highsmith has three, two of them in Week 1. Pittsburgh’s defense has allowed 13 offensive points in each game.
Cincinnati’s protection held against Tampa Bay, which sacked Burrow once, and did not against Houston. Tackle Brian Parker II is on injured reserve, and the Bengals were flagged 12 times for 78 yards in Houston. The counterweight: Burrow threw two touchdowns there and nobody on either team turned the ball over. Ten sacks and hits on a quarterback carrying a back injury is the number we most want to see come down on Sunday.
He has history here. Burrow is 3–1 as a starter in Pittsburgh and has won his last three there. He has not faced the Steelers since 4 January 2025: a turf-toe injury in Week 2 of 2025 kept him out until Thanksgiving, so Joe Flacco started both 2025 meetings.
Can Pittsburgh’s offense score on Cincinnati’s defense?
Not much against anyone so far: one offensive touchdown in eight quarters, 11.5 points a game, 5-for-25 on third down and 1-for-3 in the red zone. Cincinnati’s rebuilt front has eight sacks in two games and just held Houston to six points.
That front now includes Dexter Lawrence II, acquired from the Giants according to OutKick, plus Jonathan Allen and Boye Mafe; Cedric Johnson had two sacks in Houston, and rookie edge Cashius Howell, a second-round pick at No. 41, played 41 of 80 snaps there, per bengals.com. Safety Kyle Dugger is now a Bengal. Last November, in a Steelers uniform, he returned an interception 73 yards for a touchdown against Cincinnati.
Pittsburgh ran for 2.8 yards a carry against Atlanta. At New England its top receiver was Germie Bernard with 4 catches for 35 yards, and DK Metcalf has 8 catches on 19 targets this season. McCarthy, who coached Rodgers for 13 seasons in Green Bay, is working with a new offensive coordinator in Brian Angelichio, and so far it has not clicked.
Who is injured for Bengals vs Steelers?
Nobody has an official Week 3 designation yet: the first practice reports come on Wednesday 23 September and final game statuses on Friday 25 September. The names to watch are Burrow (back) for Cincinnati and three Steelers, cornerback Joey Porter Jr. (back), receiver Michael Pittman Jr. (foot) and running back Rico Dowdle (toe), all due to be evaluated on Wednesday according to McCarthy and the AP.
| Player | Injury | Latest |
|---|---|---|
| Joe Burrow, CIN QB | Back | Questionable in Week 2, played; this week’s practice status not given |
| B.J. Hill, CIN DT | Achilles | Inactive in Week 2; in neither 2026 box score |
| Samaje Perine, CIN RB | Knee | Missed two Week 2 practices, then played |
| Joey Porter Jr., PIT CB | Back | Missed Weeks 1 and 2; evaluation Wednesday |
| Michael Pittman Jr., PIT WR | Foot | Ruled out Saturday 19 September; evaluation Wednesday |
| Rico Dowdle, PIT RB | Toe | Hurt at New England, did not finish |
| Troy Fautanu, PIT LT | Ankle | Questionable in Week 2, played every snap |
ESPN’s injury tracker currently shows Porter, Pittman and Hill as “Out” and Dowdle as “Questionable”. Those are ESPN’s own labels, dated 20 and 21 September, not designations from either team.
Porter’s back kept him on the physically-unable-to-perform list in camp, and Steelers.com listed him “Conditioning/Back” before ruling him out in Week 2; McCarthy said on 21 September that the back flared up in practice. On Pittman, McCarthy said it is a new foot injury, not the one from camp, and that he has made progress but no feel either way for Sunday (Audacy). Without Porter, Pittsburgh gave up 208 yards on Drake Maye’s 14 completions, 96 of them on three catches by Romeo Doubs.
Also out of the picture: offensive tackle Brian Parker II and cornerback Ja’Sir Taylor for Cincinnati, safety DeShon Elliott and tackle Jack Driscoll for Pittsburgh, all on injured reserve per ESPN’s tracker. TribLive reported guard Mason McCormick hurt on the last play of the third quarter at New England, with no update since.
Who has won recent Bengals vs Steelers games?
They split 2025: Cincinnati won 33–31 at home on Thursday 16 October, and Pittsburgh won 34–12 at Acrisure Stadium on Sunday 16 November. Joe Flacco started both for Cincinnati. Pittsburgh leads the all-time series 72–41, including 2–0 in the playoffs.
| Date | Venue | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Thu 16 Oct 2025 | Cincinnati | CIN won 33–31 |
| Sun 16 Nov 2025 | Pittsburgh | PIT won 34–12 |
In October, Flacco threw for 342 yards and three touchdowns, Rodgers for 249 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions, and McPherson won it with a 36-yard field goal with seven seconds left. In November, Flacco went 23 of 40 for 199 yards; Rodgers and Mason Rudolph threw a touchdown each, and Pittsburgh added Dugger’s pick-six and a 34-yard fumble-recovery touchdown by James Pierre.
Burrow’s four starts in Pittsburgh:
| Date | Result |
|---|---|
| Sun 15 Nov 2020 | Lost 36–10 |
| Sun 26 Sep 2021 | Won 24–10 |
| Sun 20 Nov 2022 | Won 37–30 |
| Sat 4 Jan 2025 | Won 19–17 |
What is the weather forecast for Bengals vs Steelers?
Mild and dry, on the current forecast. The National Weather Service’s Pittsburgh office, in its 5-day forecast issued Tuesday 22 September, has Sunday mostly sunny with a high near 69°F, a north wind of 5 to 9 mph and a 5% chance of precipitation. Acrisure Stadium has no roof, so the forecast applies, but nothing in it points to a weather factor.
What is our Bengals vs Steelers prediction?
Bengals 23, Steelers 16. That is our judgement, argued from the box scores, the injury news and the head-to-head record, and it assumes Burrow practices this week and starts normally.
- Pittsburgh’s offense is the weakest unit on the field. One offensive touchdown, three giveaways and six sacks allowed in two games, now facing a front with eight sacks of its own.
- The Steelers may again be short at receiver and corner. If Pittman and Porter miss a second week, Chase and Higgins face a secondary that just let Doubs average 32 yards a catch.
- The case for Pittsburgh is real, and it is why this is a one-score call. Watt and Highsmith, a defense allowing 13 offensive points a game, a home crowd that watched a 34–12 win over Cincinnati ten months ago, and a quarterback across the field who was hit ten times last Sunday.
- Kicking fits a low-scoring game. McPherson is 6 for 6 with four makes from 51 yards or longer; Chris Boswell is 3 for 5.
The score reads as two Bengals touchdowns and three McPherson field goals against one Steelers touchdown and three field goals.
What would make this prediction wrong?
Burrow’s back, first. If he is limited or held out of practice this week, or plays and takes another five sacks, Cincinnati’s offense could look like its 267-yard output in Houston or worse, and 16 points might be enough for Pittsburgh.
- Porter and Pittman both clear Wednesday’s evaluations and play. That removes two of the matchups the pick leans on.
- A non-offensive touchdown. Each team has scored one this season and allowed one. In a game we project in the high teens to low 20s, one play swings it.
- Cincinnati’s defense bends further. Houston outgained the Bengals 374 to 267 and C.J. Stroud threw for 353 yards; red-zone and fourth-down stops held the Texans to six, and in our view those are harder to repeat than sacks.
- Pittsburgh’s run game wakes up. Tampa Bay and Houston ran for 149 yards combined against Cincinnati. Dowdle’s toe decides how deep the Steelers’ backfield is.
- Home field. Pittsburgh won the last meeting here by 22 points, and Burrow’s 3–1 record in the building is four games.
What to check before kickoff
- Wednesday 23 September: the first official practice report, Burrow’s line before anything else.
- Friday 25 September: final designations for Porter, Pittman, Dowdle and Hill.
- Sunday, about 11:30 AM ET: inactives, roughly 90 minutes before kickoff.
- Saturday: the updated National Weather Service forecast for Pittsburgh.
- Streaming on Paramount+: whether your local CBS station is carrying this game.
How we verified this
✅ All six final scores were checked twice against ESPN’s game data, and every one matched on score, date, venue and home team: the four 2026 games and the two 2025 meetings. The Bengals’ 20–6 win in Houston also matches the bengals.com box score. ESPN’s feed still uses an old name for Houston’s stadium, so this page just says “in Houston”.
✅ Every stat line comes from those box scores, and the two-game totals are our own arithmetic from them: Burrow 45 of 66 for 461 yards, Rodgers 47 of 79 for 408, Pittsburgh’s 23 points and 5-for-25 on third down. One figure was rejected. The Bengals’ scouting report of 22 September says Pittsburgh averaged 22.5 points in the two 2025 meetings; the box scores show 31 and 34, and we used the box scores.
✅ The all-time 72–41 record was re-checked because the first research pass could source it only to Wikipedia. The adversarial re-check found StatMuse’s log of 111 regular-season meetings (Pittsburgh 70–41) and ESPN data for the two playoff games, both Steelers wins in Cincinnati: 31–17 on Sunday 8 January 2006 and 18–16 on Saturday 9 January 2016. Together they make 72–41. ⚠️ Pro Football Reference refused our requests, and no team game-notes release had a series figure yet.
🔴 Burrow’s health was checked against the Bengals’ own injury report and press notes, and the re-check changed how this page describes it. The first pass said “no setback reported”, which was true and incomplete. The re-check added Burrow’s own postgame words, the five hits on top of five sacks (both in bengals.com’s postgame notes of 20 September), and Zac Taylor’s refusal on 21 September to give a practice status. This page does not call Burrow fully healthy, and the pick is conditional on him practicing. The re-check did not change the pick itself.
🔴 No official Week 3 injury designation existed when this was written on Tuesday 22 September. ESPN’s injury tracker lists Porter, Pittman and Hill as “Out” and Dowdle as “Questionable”; those are ESPN’s labels, not the teams’, and they are reported here as such. The re-check also corrected two injury details from the first pass. Porter’s absence has been about his back in both weeks (Steelers.com listed “Conditioning/Back” for Week 2), not conditioning one week and the back the next. And the claim that no Bengals player was hurt in Houston was wrong: the play-by-play logs two brief exits, both players returned, and bengals.com said one of them had lost a shoe.
✅ The Steelers’ coordinators were upgraded from secondary reports to the team’s own coaches page, which names Brian Angelichio as offensive coordinator and Patrick Graham as defensive coordinator, and dates McCarthy’s introduction to Tuesday 27 January 2026.
⚠️ Three details about Aaron Rodgers were checked and left out because they could not be confirmed: a quote attributed to him after Week 2 that the re-check could not find in the Steelers’ published transcripts, the date of his re-signing, and an uncited claim about his future. Tracking figures cited by the Bengals’ scouting report (time to throw, pressure rates) were also left out; we could not check them. Dexter Lawrence II’s trade from the Giants is as reported by OutKick; he appears in the Bengals’ 2026 box scores.
⚠️ Dowdle’s exit could not be timed exactly. The play-by-play shows him returning early in the third quarter and last touching the ball on its final play; one report has him leaving early in the fourth, another in the third.
⚠️ TV details come from bengals.com’s how-to-watch page of 22 September and ESPN’s game data, with the CBS crew also confirmed by SteelersNow. We did not check CBS’s regional coverage map, so whether Paramount+ shows you this game depends on your local CBS station.
⚠️ The weather is the National Weather Service’s 5-day forecast for the Acrisure Stadium grid point (Pittsburgh office, PBZ 77,66), issued at 2:22 PM ET on 22 September. It will be revised before kickoff.
🔴 No point spreads, moneylines, totals, sportsbook favorite or underdog labels, prediction-market prices or model win probabilities such as ESPN’s FPI were consulted for this page, and none appear on it.